


It's not me, it's you. Actually, it's your father

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [36]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 15:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17942756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: Alex could never have had a mother-in-law because Timmy has two fathers, but if he had, that would definitely be Leo.





	It's not me, it's you. Actually, it's your father

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is a **spin-off/sequel** for Broken Heart Syndrome. This means that, despite not being properly set after BHS (but that's only because BHS is probably never going to have a proper ending and we'll keep talking about these people forever), it depicts things happening way late in the 'verse, and that may be on varying degrees of spoiler.
> 
> written for: COW-T #9  
> prompt: "Buona sera. Probabilmente tua madre merita di morire." (Leander Deeny, Gli incubi di Hazel)

A lot of people have bothered Alex a great deal in the course of his life, especially when he was in high school, but half of them learned the hard way not to do it ever again and the other half were so irrelevant to him that he hardly remembers their names. He has a very specific policy for the things that annoy him: he either does something to fix them or ignores them completely. He has always had a certain practicality that allows him to deal only with things that are actually worthy of his time. He never really gets angry or depressed in general, even less so when it's about something that won't ultimately affect his life in any way whatsoever. It's a waste of energy he doesn't really need.

When he was younger and he lived in Italy, he went to a fashion-oriented high school. It was a pretty basic school, designed to give students a smattering of tailoring and dressmaking, and the basics of marketing. Nothing too special, but a good preparatory school for the School of Fashion & Art he was going to attend after. 

He had been obsessed with that school since he was very young, so there had been no doubts in his mind when the time had come for him to choose a high school to attend: he was going to go there or he was going to die trying. He had made such a convincing speech that Cody and Vince had ended up agreeing, even if the school was in Florence – so very far from home – and he was going to have to take the train and a bus to get there.

He loved pretty much every class and, being that a very specialized school, all his classmates had his same passion, so he didn't feel like the peculiar kid as he had in middle school. Life had been generally easier, but he was a skinny fifteen years old boy who liked to sometimes wear girl clothes and who looked already androgynous enough to confuse people about his gender. People – his peers especially – talked about him behind his back all the time and they weren't nice. Cody was worried that his son was going to get hurt the way he himself had been hurt, but that wasn't going to happen. Alex literally _didn't care_. All that mattered to him was his teachers' opinion on his work, and sometimes not even that. He had simply gone through school and verbal harassment just straight up ignoring everybody who wasn't worthy of his time and attention. People who didn't like him or who envied him were not a problem he could fix or one that he _wanted_ to fix, so it simply didn't exist.

When a real problem came up that needed to be solved, he would make sure to do just that. One of those problems had been Giulia Casati. Giulia was his classmate and she was quite an average student, but most of the class adored her because she was rich and two years prior she had lived in Paris for six months, which according to her, gave her quite an extensive knowledge of class A worldwide fashion. Alex found her quite dull and uninteresting, and when he had refused to be her little worshiper like the rest of her minions, she had taken a disliking to him. She was the daughter of a councilman with enough money to shop at Zara every other week and he was the son of a farmer, who had to make his own clothes half the time, so it was easy for her to feel superior. Except that she was not, because Alex had an instinct for fashion, had had a very peculiar personal style since he was a kid – which is pretty much the point of being a stylist – and he was generally cuter than she was. That had made her very bitter.

In the second year, they had all been assigned to draw their own spring/summer collection and to realize the centerpiece of the collection for their finals. The theme was _Renaissance art_. Alex had spent weeks researching on the internet and life drawing at the Uffizi Gallery, coming up with a wedding dress inspired to Botticelli's Primavera. Thinking back at it now, it was a very basic dress, but for a sixteen year old boy, it was great and he was very proud of it. He had five mood boards in his room just for fabric and jewelry and he had even found the perfect model, one of his favorite female friends. He was pumped up, excited and ready.

Two days before the fashion show that was supposed to happen with the centerpiece of each student's collection, his dress had gone missing. Giulia had been so blatant about it that everybody who had eyes knew it had been her, but there were no proofs, so she felt safe. Alex made sure she understood how wrong she was. He had waited patiently for her to be alone, corralled her into an empty room without touching her once, simply forcing her to step back by stepping forward, and he had locked them both inside. Showing a pair of big tailoring scissors in her face, he had calmly explained to her that either the dress turned up again in a timely manner or he would take care of the problem in a way she would not like. The next day the dress was on the mannequin and she had never even looked his way again.

His policy of fixing a problem or ignore it has always worked no matter what – it's at the very core of his being – that's why the fact that lately it's not working is twice as annoying. The point is that Alex has always followed this policy in relation to problems he was at liberty to deal with, but the procedure cannot be applied to his boyfriend's father for obvious reasons.

Alex could never have had a mother-in-law because Timmy has two fathers, but if he had, that would definitely be Leo. Alex and him have never had a good relationship, mostly because of Leo. The man is the very definition of insufferable and, as far as Alex is concerned, Blaine is the one to blame, but not for the reasons that everybody thinks.

Leo had a mental breakdown in his early twenties and Blaine came back from New York to Lima, turning his and Timmy's life upside down just to take care of him. Alex knows the whole story and he respects it. His own father was severely depressed and he tried to commit suicide, so he's very sensitive to mental illness. But that was more than twenty years ago and Leo's not even in therapy anymore. His life is different. He's not a desperate kid anymore. He got better, he's married with the great love of his life, he's got three beautiful children, a lot of money and he works doing what he likes best, which is writing stories.

Alex really thinks that he should get a grip, every once in a while at least.

Instead, the whole management of the household – young children included – revolves solely around him. People say or don't say things, do or don't do things, because Leo could get upset or angry or sad. Everyone always walks on eggshells, careful not to tip off his apparently precarious balance. Everything is done following Leo's own stupid rules as if he was way more crazy than he actually is.

The problem is that Blaine feels guilty for having disrupted Leo's life when he was fifteen, making him emotionally e mentally dependent from him for the rest of his life, so he decided to atone for his sin by being at the service of Leo's every whim. He would do anything for his younger husband, putting him ahead of everything, including his children and his career. He coddles him all the time, preventing him from growing up as if he wanted to give him back the adolescence he took away from him.

Leo is a forty years old man with the mind of a fifteen years old kid.

Timmy – despite sometimes fighting with him so ferociously that one of them always ends up either crying or storming out of the house – says that Leo is not all bad, that he's ridiculously funny and very easygoing. He always tells Alex the story of how Leo single-handedly helped him through his dyslexia when he was a child, or how good he is at explaining things, even the most embarrassing ones, how he sings all the time making you want to sing along. And Alex believes Timmy, but he has never seen one of these things with his own eyes because the odd times that he is at their house, Leo does everything he can not to look nor speak to him, and so Alex very gladly obliges him by doing the very same. It's a cold war between them.

Alex never received any official confirmation regarding the reason behind Leo's hate for him, but he's pretty sure it has everything to do with his father. Leo and Cody were together for, like, nine months during college, which would be a ludicrous amount of time to say they were meant for each other if they were two normal people. But Cody's longest relationship at that point had been with a sociopath and had ended with him cutting his own wrists, and Leo's relationships were only brief affairs in between Blaine's coming and going. So nine months were a big deal. Then, Blaine came back in like a wrecking ball, swept Leo off his feet with the promise of a trip around the world and Leo unwillingly broke up with Cody as he loved him but he loved Blaine more. Neither of them has ever got over that nine-months-long love story.

Now, Alex looks a lot like his father. He's taller and leaner and his features are a little sharper, but they have the same colors and the same doll-like quality, they both look unreal. Leo sort of sees Cody in him and he's jealous of Timmy, because he can have what he had to give up. This is insane and certainly Alex shouldn't know anything about his father's past loves or his current weird relationship with his ex-boyfriend, let alone being involved in it in any way, but it is what it is. Leo can't stand having him around because he's a living reminder that he can't have Cody. Therefore, most of the time he forbids Timmy to bring him home, which promptly sets off a war between them.

According to his personal policy, Alex should ignore Leo – but he can't really _ignore_ his boyfriend's father as he is not just a stranger and he won't disappear from his life any time soon – and surely he can't threaten him with a pair of scissors. So, for the first time in his life he's at a loss on how to deal with a problem, even more so when Timmy comes to him bearing the worst of news.

“Babe,” he speaks softly, the way you would do to tame a beast, so Alex knows right away it is something he won't like at all, “I just came off the phone with Leo, he wants us over for dinner tomorrow night.”

And I want to eat everything I can and not put on weight, Alex thinks, but we can't have everything, can we? “I'm not sure it is the best idea,” Alex answers as politely as he knows how. “I'm on a cleanse this week, I hardly eat anything for your father's standard.”

Timmy smiles brightly as if he was expecting that answer and already had the solution to that problem. “I already told him that and he's ready to make you everything you want,” he says, happily.

In the last few years Leo has proved to be largely more willing to interact with him when food is involved. He disapproves of the way Alex feeds himself, _but_ he takes finding dishes suitable for whatever diet Alex is following at the moment like a challenge. It's not having him over that he likes, it's winning that challenge. And so, inviting him for dinner every two months or so has become an annoying habit. “I don't want to bother,” Alex says, meaning _I don't want this dinner to turn ugly_.

“You won't, he invited you himself and he knows what he signed up for at this point,” Timmy insists with a chuckle. “And I made sure he won't get all crazy.”

Alex is not so sure about that. First, knowing what he signed up for and actually be able to deal with any possible setback are two different things – and Leo is not famous for his mental elasticity. Two, making him dinner is a good thing, but it won't fix the rest of the night, when they won't have anything to eat anymore and they will have to have conversations and hang out together. The moment Alex will stop eating whatever food Leo has prepared for him, he will turn back to be Cody's copy who reminds Leo of his biggest loss.

“Come on,” Timmy pleads, pulling him in his arms. “I told him I trust him, that I have been very proud of how he behaved with you lately and that I don't want to stop now. He won't do anything crazy because he likes to be prized.”

This sentence alone would be worthy of therapy, but Alex can't deal with it right now. He looks up at Timmy, instead, and he finds him smiling and thrilled. Timmy might fight with Leo a lot, but the truth is he loves him dearly as he loves Blaine and his siblings. He loves his family and he likes to be with them and, more than anything, he would love for Alex to love them too, for him to be accepted completely because that would make him complete. His heart will never be at peace as long as Alex and Leo are at odds. It's like a crooked picture for him, or a misaligned tile. It's not the end of the world, but it annoys him. And Alex hates to be, even unwillingly, the cause of that.

“Alright, we can go,” he gives in with a soft sigh. Timmy's lips instantly open in the widest, happiest smile and Alex can't help but smile too. He can't predict Leo's reactions or understand what's going through his mind, he can't even stop himself from being pissed at him and wanting to kill him half the time, but there's a thing he can do, and that's accept a peace offering whenever it is given to him and find his own to give, if he can.


End file.
